


Knives

by SilverMoon53



Category: The Gifted (TV 2017)
Genre: (I'm not bipolar but I have depression so let me know if the mania part needs changing or anything), 5+1, 5+1 Things, 5+1 Times, Angst, Bipolar Disorder, Canon Bipolar character, Canon Compliant, Depression, Gen, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda Dark, Knives, Pre-Canon, Self-Harm, Suicide, Takes place over the timespan from when they meet to a little after they fall in love, but doesn't focus on their romance, even by my standards haha oops, slides into new fandom with a healthy shot of angst, this is uh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 08:33:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13632618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverMoon53/pseuds/SilverMoon53
Summary: Five times Marcos catches Lorna playing with knivesand one time she isnt playing(make sure you read the tags)





	Knives

**Author's Note:**

> Anyway, I was thinking about that scene at the start of episode 8 (Threat of eXtinction) where Lorna is lying on the couch using her powers to lift a knife over her chest and letting it drop and Marcos walks in and says “You know I hate it when you do that.” So I decided to write 5+1 times he caught her doing that.

1\. First  
She hears him coming. 

The building they’re in (Thunderbird calls it “the Headquarters” but she doesn’t think you can call something that when the only people in the entire organization are three 20-somethings, but it isn’t a point worth arguing) is too big with too few things to absorb the sound. His footsteps echo loudly before stopping just outside her door. For a second - just a second - she considers putting her toys away, acting like she was doing something productive. Better to not scare off the new meat so soon. Then she decides that if he gets scared off by a single knife, then he isn’t going to do much good for the group anyway.

She doesn’t look when the door creaks open, just keeps her eyes on the knife as she flicks it up and lets it go. She hears his soft gasp as she catches the blade in her green aura just as the tip presses into the tent of her shirt between her breasts. 

He mutters an apology of some sort and scurries away. She smirks, flicks the knife up higher and closes her eyes to catch it.

 

2\. Question  
“Why do you do that?” he asks, though it doesn’t really sound like he expects a response. 

She hesitates, cool handle clutched in her physical hand, rough grip pressed hard against calloused fingers. “Why?” she echos, stalling. 

He doesn’t press, though she knows he wants to. He hasn’t been around too long, still finding his place. His confidence as a leader doesn’t stick around when it’s just the two of them. Even after all he has been through, he still sees himself as someone who needs guidance sometimes. 

She wishes she could be more reliable.

“I don’t know,” she answers after a time. “No one ever asked me that before.” She can feel his eyes on her, soft, almost pitying but not quite. “Most just ask me what it is I’m doing.” 

“I know what you’re doing, though,” he says in a tone that she doesn’t like. His voice says that he knows _exactly_ what it is she’s doing, and she doesn’t like feeling so bare in front of anyone. 

She can’t let him see her like that. She can’t let anyone see her like that, so she plays it off with a scoff and lifts the knife into the air again. “What, you worried about me or something?”

“Should I be?”

“I can stop bullets shot just a few yards from me. Why should a knife dropped from above be any more dangerous? Why should a knife be any different?” She rolls her head over to look at him, shooting him with her best arrogant glare. 

“I think the difference,” he replies slowly, holding her gaze steadily, “is that you want to stop the bullet.”

“Well then,” she says after a beat, and turns back to continue as if never interrupted. _You’re not wrong._ she adds silently.

 

3\. Low  
The knife falls and she doesn’t stop it this time. She can feel the breeze from it on her ear, feel the way the blade quivers against that delicate skin as it embeds itself in the wooden floor. 

The floor is scarred with little cuts; the tip of this blade is dull from use. She knows that ~~if~~ when she sits up, she will leave behind strands of severed hair forming a halo where she had laid, knows there will be drops of blood (small ones, so small, so meaningless, hardly noticeable amid all the other stains on the dark hardwood) along her arms where she ~~purposely~~ accidentally let the knife fall too close. 

She raises her hand again, twirling the knife without really thinking about it. Her eyes are unfocused, looking past the blade until all she can make out is a glistening blurr. She doesn’t need to see it to position it, though. 

Her heart beats, insistent. She can feel it moving her chest, feel it rushing around her eyes and all the way down to her toes, feel the steady _bu-bum bu-bum bu-bum_ in fingertips that don’t feel like they belong to her. 

She can feel it in her throat and it suddenly feels all too real, all too much and she’s ready to let go when she feels a weight drop beside her. 

Two hands, not hers, come close. One, slow, steady, as though afraid any sudden movement might scare it away, send it plunging down, reaches for the knife. Grabs it, pulls it gently away, out of sight, out of mind.

The other brushes hers, the one glowing green. It is gentle, soft. It isn’t right, it should be callused and hard. Why would such a kind hand ever want to touch one as bloody and rough as hers? She considers taking the knife back, not just dropping it for gravity to take but pulling it towards her gaping neck, ending it all. But that second hand is firm around hers and she doesn’t have enough strength to squeeze back, let alone fight him so she allows him to take it away. 

His face swims before her still-unfocused eyes but everything is even more blurry from tears and she wonders if she can hold her breath long enough to suffocate. 

“Hey,” he says.

“Talk to me,” he begs.

“Please.” She can hear the desperation in his voice, hear the fear, and hates herself all the more for it.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“It hurts,” she croaks.

“I just need to _feel_.”

 

4\. Habit  
It’s more of a habit than anything by this point. Something to keep her hands busy while she thinks. 

She plays it off easily. “Play for keeps out there, practice for keeps in here.” 

And that is true. There are no second chances out there, so she doesn’t see the point in handing them out like candy. Better to learn the hard way when you’re somewhere safe. And what she is doing is, truly, practicing her powers. The accuracy and precision required isn’t easy, after all. 

And it’s not like she advertises it. Most of the people who catch her in the act accept her smooth words without hesitation. After all, she can stop bullets mid-air, what threat could a knife possibly be to her? 

Thunderbird doesn’t buy it, not really. He’s known her too well for too long. His time in the army has shown him his fair share of broken people, even before working in the Underground. He keeps his mouth shut though. His methods aren’t any better and she has as much dirt on him as he has on her.

But he isn’t Thunderbird, and he hasn’t known her for as long. He doesn’t buy it either but he is so open and so _clean_ that he just. Doesn’t get it. Some part of her is jealous of that. Some part of her hates him for it. 

Mostly she’s glad he isn’t as broken as she is. 

He tries to stop her. Alone, when it’s just the two of them, he tries to talk to her about it. Spouts the line about how it doesn’t help, how it’s only making things worse. He won’t agree to disagree, so she agrees not to do it ~~when hes around~~.

Sometimes, though, she forgets.

“You’re doing it again.” His voice is soft, doesn’t have an edge like hers does, like the knife does. She glances at him, confused for a second. Her eyes meet his in the dim light of their room and he flicks his to just about her, pointedly. The knife catches the light and glints as she turns, and she breathes out a soft “oh.” 

She knew her fingers were moving, knew she was feeling the metal around her. Toying with the knife is more of a way to keep her hands busy than anything else and she truly hadn’t realized. She stares for a second, soothed by the glare of light, then waves her wrist lazily and sets the knife back on the side table. She doesn’t apologize, though she knows he wants her to.

“We talked about this,” he says after a few moments of silence. 

“I know,” she says. Neither says anything else for a long while. 

 

5\. High  
She knows she’s in love with him. Knows he’s in love with her, knows that their powers combined can create the most magnificent sight in the world and they would still rather stare at each others’ eyes. 

She knows this and it sends her flying high, long into the night. She soars through the air, gravity pulling her against the metal around her wrists and ankles. She pulls herself up, higher, higher, higher, until she is level with the roof. 

She craves the rush, needs to feel as much as she can as fast as she as soon as she can so she spins herself until she can’t tell which way is up and lets go. 

She falls, laughing and screaming and unable to tell the difference. Tumbling through the cold air, she catches a glimpse of the knives she stuck in the earth, blades pointing up. She had tried making the knives rise and fall but it hadn’t been _enough_ she needed _more_ so why not do the same thing in reverse? 

She catches herself, feels her arms and legs jolt in a way that would hurt like hell if she wasn’t in the middle of a mania, cranes her neck the last few inches to kiss the earth. 

Up again. Higher this time, faster, spinning as she goes. It feels good, it feels free. She feels more alive than she has in… possibly ever. The cold air bites her ears and her eyes, grates harshly against the raw skin on her arm from a time she didn’t catch herself quite soon enough. 

Falling again.

Catch herself.

Up again, higher, faster, spinning as she goes.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

She knows, somewhere in the back of her mind, that she is manic. Knows that this behavior is self-destructive, knows she isn’t as invincible as she feels. 

But half of the part that knows doesn’t care, and the rest is too quiet to drown the desire out.

Down below (is it down? is it up? he cant fly, surely that way must be down), she can see someone moving. She takes a second to right herself, only right is wrong and she hangs upside down by her ankles and watches him move as the blood flows to her head.

She knows it’s him, though she can’t say why. Maybe it’s the careful way he moves, walking back and forth, bending down as if to pick something up, moving on. She just knows.

He hasn’t seen her yet, she knows this too. 

With a loud whoop, she lets her ankles go and grabs her wrists instead, pulling herself towards him at dangerous speeds. 

He panics at the sound, turning and firing for the split second it takes him to realise it’s her. 

She sees the fear on his face change to a different fear as his light singes her arm, sends her off course. Laughter bursts from her lips as she crashes into the dirt next to him, going too fast but slow enough to avoid broken bones. 

“Oh, god,” he shouts. Her name is spilling from his lips as he rushes to her side, apologies falling from his mouth like the knives he had been collecting a moment ago. “Are you okay?” he asks and she laughs louder because she’s never felt better. “You’re hurt.”

And so she is, in so many ways, but his eyes are racing over her face so she assumes that is the hurt he is talking about. 

Blood drips from her nose, dribbling into her mouth. The metallic taste sends pleasant shocks through her and for a second she wonders if there is enough iron in her blood that she can control it, if there is enough in other people that she can control _them_ then she realises that he is shouting at her and forces herself to listen. 

“You’re hurting yourself!” he shouts, desperate. She laughs louder still, pulls him in for a deep kiss, shoving her tongue onto his and wondering if he finds the tang of her blood as electrifying as she does.

“You poor, sweet boy,” she murmurs when he pushes her away, still cackling. “Hurt is all I am.”

 

~~+1. not a game anymore~~  
the action is so ingrained in her at this point, she doesnt even have to think. its better that way, she thinks, easier. no thought involved, just her body running through the motions shes practiced hundreds of times before. 

the knives float in the air, feeling very much like an extension of herself. three of them, all freshly sharpened. she tried it once before with blades dull from use, and had found the bite not what she wanted. sharp is better for something like this, she feels. less catch, less drag. deeper. she wonders where to put them this time, where the best place would be.

wrists are cliche, though there is a reason for that. she likes the thought of her throat, split open like a stuck pig, but fears missing the artery. she doesnt want to sever her windpipe and suffocate. the thought of lying there, gasping for air, desperate, is almost enough to scare her out of this. but her mind is made up and she already spends so much time like that anyway, what would a few minutes more be?

she decides. one over her left wrist, right hand needed to position them. one over her throat, head turned to the right, to the door, blood vessel pulsing to the ceiling above her. one over her stomach, insurance. 

how high do they need to be? she wonders. higher, probably, than they can go with the roof in the way. oh well, she thinks. thats why i have three. 

theres a knock on the door and she hears him call her name and she hesitates. she doesnt want him to find her, doesnt want to be found at all, but supposes he will have to find out one way or another. 

theres worry in his voice when she doesnt answer. of course there is. he loves her, she knows this, knows that this will sadden him greatly. she tries to find the energy to care, to muster up an apology, but she was never one for saying sorry. his knocking gets more insistent, his calls louder. 

“I know you’re in there! Please, open the door.”

but the door is locked and she has the knives positioned so perfectly, it would be a shame to move and have to readjust. she can hear him rattle the doorknob now, trying to get in. he calls her name again, desperate, scared, and she doesnt reply.

he starts trying to break the door down just as the knives nudge against the ceiling.

she had almost forgotten about them, somehow. she can still feel them, of course, but the act of flying knives is as much a part of her as her hands that its easy to forget they are there, even if shes holding them. she cant see them, can only see the door light up as he blasts it.

he calls her name again, telling her hes coming in, breaking the door down, to just hold on. she says nothing. the door bursts open and for a second, they lock eyes.

“Lorna? Lorna!” he shouts and she lets go.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr at https://cloudcoveronclearnights.tumblr.com/ or on Discord: cloudcover#7167 Feel free to send me a message and just start talking!
> 
> (and no, she isn't dead. Canon compliant, remember?)


End file.
